Surfer Dudes Catch Some Gospel Along With Waves

But back on the beach, Steve DeBeaus, 30, faces the rising sun and prepares to receive his lesson. He discovered the group on the Internet while searching for Christian communities to help develop his social circle.

"I'm looking for people to gel with about surfing and about Christ," said DeBeaus, whose gray T-shirt features the National Basketball Association logo -- with an image of Jesus Christ in place of a ballplayer. "I want more of life to be with people who share my values."

Eric Koby, a Web designer from New Jersey who met DeBeaus through church, said: "Knowing someone is Christian, you already know something huge about them -- probably the most important thing in their life."

Surf festivals aside, the Jersey Shore chapter of the Christian Surfers debuted last November and consists mostly of friends and old buddies from Messiah College, a Christian liberal arts college in Pennsylvania.

On weekends a core group of a dozen offers surfing lessons, using that "hook" to invite newcomers to group prayers at sunset. About 40 surfers regularly attend weekly meetings at "the Garage," a space attached to Brooks's house in Brick, N.J., where they pray together and watch surfing videos.

Evangelizing surfers is all about a laid-back vibe. No preaching, no church talk, just a focus on building that "relationship" with Him.

They say that to become a Christian Surfer, it's helpful to know how to catch a wave -- and essential to accept Christ. The reward is the "fellowship" of men (and a few women) while navigating the treacherous waters of early adulthood.

Nate Lloyd, who has a boyish face and a surfer's body, spends his summers on his native Jersey Shore. In his senior year, when it was hip to mark a birthday with tattoos of Celtic crosses, he chose one for his left arm that resembles a wooden cross to remind people that "Jesus died on one."

Lloyd plays the clown in the group. But behind the laid-back surfer style, Lloyd describes a search for an identity, alienation that only subsided when he became more hard-core about his faith. Lloyd found himself within the Christian fold.

"I've thought about how cool it would be to have a strong culture," Lloyd said. "I think about past Christians and look at them as my culture, rather than my Italian ancestors. I probably know more about them than my own family tree."

The Christian Surfers began, as evangelizing missions often do, after a lot of searching. Keith Gallo, who has a tattooed mosaic of sea life wrapped around his arm and leg, passed the years after college chasing killer waves and good drugs along the coasts of Costa Rica and Indonesia. Finally, broke and unemployed, he got an offer from a Christian friend: Come live in my house on Maui, but you have to stop smoking ganja.

"It just showed that he really cared about me," said Gallo, 25, whose sun-weathered face makes him look older. "I was like, whoa, the Lord had been knocking on my door for a long time."

Gallo returned to New Jersey, moved in with his parents, found a church and severed his ties to his old world. Then one night he got a phone call from a friend, Dan Cotton, who had been riding the waves in Panama. Cotton had met Christian surfers and felt a call to start a surf ministry.

Gallo thought it sounded cool: two surfer dudes just totally stoked about the trinity of beach, surf and fellowship.

"Christ life is not easy, but . . . we totally know it's God," Gallo said. "We know it's the Lord."